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Saturday, May 4, 2013

Doug TenNapel is a jerk

Doug TenNapel is a jerk - or maybe more appropriately, an asshat. Earlier in the year I had helped fund his kickstarter for the "Sketchbook Archives". I pledged $60 for the following tier:

"A signed copy of the hard bound, 250 page Doug TenNapel Sketchbook Archives + a doodle of EWJ or ANY OTHER CHARACTER drawn in the book + an original page from one of my sketchbooks + an original piece of CATSCRATCH animation production art + a Nnewts bookmark (added to all upper tiers) + an 8 page ZINE called “Working in the Cow Fat Tanks” documenting the worst job of my life [this is how I got my work ethic]"

His project went over its original goal of $18K to an incredible $116,144, unlocking all sorts of extras to his sketchbook, including more pages, gold gilded edges, and a round spine with ribs. I was pretty excited for the sketchbook page and animation production art, even though I knew not to expect something super fantastic since hundreds of people were getting the same items from different tiers. I was not, however, expecting this:

A thin, flimsy envelope to send a sketch book page and original piece of animation production art? Jammed into my mailbox? This is the point where I would like to point out that, around five separate times, he has asked for extra money for shipping. I was considering sending him something extra (even though he went almost $100K over his original goal) after I got my tax return money, for alas, since the pledge I haven't been making much money at all. I'm glad I didn't waste it. I logged onto kickstarter, and... well, read for yourself:

Whoa, whoa, whoa. What? $75 for insured first class shipping? What planet are you on?! You can get a 2oz First Class package with tracking and $500 insurance for about $10, give or take about fifty cents. Tracking and insurance weren't my issue, and neither was sending the item first class: I was upset about the bad packaging.

I only hope that for the higher tiers he doesn't send his original bristol board art in the same fashion. I had wanted to frame the production art, but in the state that it's in it looks like I stepped on it - not really worth showing off at all.

Edit: I'd like to amend this entry and say that TenNapel has at least offered to refund me the money for the extra items that were destroyed. Even so, this is missing the point that I'd rather not have my items crumpled up in my mailbox and have stubborn responses that sound like I'm asking for too much to not receive damaged product.

3 comments:

I had the same issue as you, my original art was all crumbled and water damaged. Everything in my package was brown and ruined from water including the 11"x17" earthworm jim commission piece. I had to take white acrylic and black ink to fix it myself. I did contact him about it though and he sent me an original page from Power Up as compensation.

That really was a shitty comment he made to you about how he isn't precious about his art so he doesn't care about how it's shipped. How he feels about his art doesn't matter at all. As soon as someone has paid you for it, it should be treated properly and you can be safe to assume that the buyer would like to have it in good condition not ripped up and soaked in brown water.

I had the same issue as you, my original art was all crumbled and water damaged. Everything in my package was brown and ruined from water including the 11"x17" earthworm jim commission piece. I had to take white acrylic and black ink to fix it myself. I did contact him about it though and he sent me an original page from Power Up as compensation.

That really was a shitty comment he made to you about how he isn't precious about his art so he doesn't care about how it's shipped. How he feels about his art doesn't matter at all. As soon as someone has paid you for it, it should be treated properly and you can be safe to assume that the buyer would like to have it in good condition not ripped up and soaked in brown water.

I'm sorry to hear about your original art, but glad to hear that he at least compensated you. As a result of his crappy comments to me, I haven't bought anything from him since. Even though he still made a lot of money from his second sketchbook kickstarter, it was $29k less than his first (1/4 less), so I figured maybe I wasn't the only one burned? But like I told him, I would never ship even a $2 print without proper protection and then be rude to the customer when it arrived destroyed. Even if it was properly protected and came destroyed I would still replace it! Not tell them too bad, it's not valuable so who cares? That's how you lose both fans and customers.

Hopefully through all of this TenNapel at least learned how to mail his art and about what shipping costs actually run. I recently shipped a large 11" x 17" private commission to Canada, wrapped it in a print sleeve, wedged it between two thick boards that had over 1" of extra space around all sides, and then sealed/wrapped it all in brown packing paper. It was $14 for an international package. Not a big deal at all. So even today, I'm still baffled by his estimate of $75 to ship a much smaller piece of art domestic!